


if you never eat (you'll never grow)

by gothcalum (orphan_account)



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Anorexia, Ashton Loves Luke, Depression, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, luke is sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-16
Updated: 2016-07-16
Packaged: 2018-07-24 08:06:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7500573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/gothcalum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>ashton misses luke, luke is sad, ashton is in love with luke.</p>
            </blockquote>





	if you never eat (you'll never grow)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [prettyluke (myhellismymind)](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=prettyluke+%28myhellismymind%29).



> for the beautiful odilia <3 
> 
> title from "robbers" by the 1975
> 
> mind the triggers.

Ashton and Luke aren’t as close as they used to be. 

And that’s nobody’s fault. That’s part of friendships. They push and they pull, and spending all your time with three individuals guarantees that you’re going to feel distant from them from time to time. The problem Ashton is having with Luke is that they were  _ so  _ close, and it’s hard to believe they aren’t that close anymore. Luke doesn’t roll over and share is three am thoughts anymore, and Ashton doesn’t tell Luke what’s bothering him anymore. 

But Ashton misses it. He misses sharing a bed with his best friend, and he misses the stupid things Luke would text him about when they weren’t together. 

Luke seems to miss it too, with lingering looks at Ashton across the room, and laughing a little too hard when Ashton speaks. But Ashton doesn’t know how to reach out and get back to where they were. 

Ashton’s thoughts had deviated from focusing on drumming for a while, staring at Luke’s back, singing into the mic, playing his guitar, getting sweaty--so Ashton fucks up. He misses one beat, and stumbles before he gets it back.

Calum looks over his shoulder, quirking up one eyebrow, a silent  _ you okay? _

Ashton nods once, and concentrates on drumming again, and that means not looking at or thinking about Luke. That turns out to be difficult. 

After the show, nobody mentions Ashton messing up, which he’s grateful for. They all take locker room showers in the venue, before they have to get shit together to get back on the bus. 

Ashton and Calum are the only ones out of the shower, as Michael is slow and Luke likes long showers. Ashton focuses on packing his stuff this time, other than thinking about Luke showering. He’s showered with Luke before, it’s not a new concept to him, scalding water rolling in lines down Luke’s back. In between his shoulder blades, along his muscles, down his sides, down towards--Ashton grunts and shakes himself, returning his mind to actively fold his laundry. 

“You alright?” Calum asks, laughing a little. 

Ashton nods. “Yeah, yeah,” he mutters. “I have a--uh--headache.”

Calum smirks. “Convincing.”

“I’m fine.”

“Okay, okay,” Calum backs off. Ashton sighs. 

So maybe Ashton misses Luke for more than just their friendship. Not that anything happened between them, other than kissing in the dark when they were a little stoned, but Ashton had always hoped for something more. More than physical, too, he already heard a great deal of Luke’s deeper thoughts, buried underneath, and Ashton wants to know more. He wants to see inside Luke’s brain, hear his every thought, make sure he’s okay, touch him, comfort him--and he’s distracted again. He huffs out a sigh. He needs to get better on this Don’t-Think-About-Luke-Constantly thing.

Michael gets out of the shower, a towel around his neck, but covering nothing else. Ashton wrinkles his nose. “Put on clothes, Jesus.”

Michael grins and saunters over to Ashton. “Ooh, you don’t like it?”

“No,” Ashton says firmly. 

Michael wiggles his hips near Ashton, and Ashton nearly slaps him in the dick, trying to shoo him away. “Get--off! Michael!” Calum is cackling in the background (useless) and Michael proceeds to crawl into Ashton’s lap, while humming an increasingly sexual tune. “Help me!” Ashton screeches, and Calum continues to bark laughter. 

“Dude,” Luke’s gruff voice materializes in the doorway towards the showers. He chuckles. “Mike, get off.”

“I’m trying to,” Michael waggles his eyebrows, which sends Calum into another fit of laughter. Luke laughs too, but he actually walks over and pushes Michael off of Ashton. 

Michael starts howling with laughter too too, and him and Calum giggle together for a while. Luke rolls his eyes. 

Luke’s towel is slung on his hips, loosely, tempting Ashton. Luke is near him, after pulling Michael off, watching Michael and Calum laugh it up, shaking his head. 

He laughs and looks down at Ashton. “You good?”

Ashton scoffs. “I think that counts as sexual assault.”

“Well don’t go suing Michael,” Luke says. “Talk about bad press.”

Michael yells something in protest on the other side of the room, but Ashton’s tuned out anyone who isn’t Luke. Luke glances down at Ashton’s bag. “Are you almost done? When is the bus pulling out?”

“In twenty,” Ashton says. “Get your stuff, let’s go.”

The bus is on Ashton’s top ten Least Favorite Places To Be list, and in his bunk ranks even higher. He tends to stay out of it, the claustrophobia getting to him most times. So he sits in the back with Luke and Calum, while Michael’s all locked up in his own bunk, playing some handheld game with the curtains drawn. 

Calum is smoking out the back window, which their technically not supposed to do, but they’re in Tennessee, so weed is illegal anyway, so Calum justifies it with, “Either way I’m breaking some kind of rule.” Luke and Ashton opt out of getting high tonight, and watch Bojack on the flatscreen. 

Luke’s doing it again, sending long looks Ashton’s way. When Ashton gets sucked into the show, he’ll feel Luke’s eyes on him, but when he looks, Luke looks away. Ashton can’t figure it out. 

Is there something weird about his face? Is Luke holding something back that he wants to say? Is he just distracted by Calum smoking on the other side of him? 

Eventually, Calum finishes his spliff and tells them he’s going to go his bunk to write an idea for a song, and Luke and Ashton are left alone. 

They say nothing for hours, not sleeping, and watching adult cartoons. Luke doesn’t laugh at the jokes, and he starts to slump into the couch, like he’s trying to disappear. Ashton glances over, and takes a good look at Luke that isn’t driven by arousal. He then realizes how shitty Luke looks. 

His eyes are sunken in, his waist has thinned, and his skin is paler than usual. He looks like shit, and Ashton hadn’t noticed. Ashton quickly looks at the TV again, but his thoughts begin to run frantic and panicked. How long has he looked that bad? Has he eaten? How long has it been since someone asked him about his wellbeing?

Luke takes notice that Ashton had been starting, and starts to stare at him now that Ashton’s gaze is averted. Ashton doesn’t break the silence, or diffuse the tension, too awkward to do anything. Fortunately, after a while, Luke does it for him, in the most stiff, impersonal way. 

With his eyes on the TV, Luke deadpans, “I have depression.”

Ashton jumps, as if he was startled. “What?”

“I saw a counselor, when we had off a month ago,” he says casually. “I have really bad depression. Also I’m anorexic.”

“What?” Ashton repeats stupidly, turning his head around to stare at Luke with huge eyes. Ashton’s stomach drops like a rock. “Are you--you serious?”

Luke still won’t look at him. “I’m underweight. The doctors say that they can tell I’m skipping meals,” he pauses. “And I guess they’re right. It wasn’t on purpose at first. But then they pointed it out, and now I can’t stop doing it. It’s like, I know I should eat, and I should gain like forty or fifty pounds to be normal again, but I--I can’t do it. I don’t want to do it.”

Ashton turns off the TV. “Luke,” he says softly. “Look at me. Hey.”

Luke reluctantly looks over, and his cold, stone demeanor melts away with Ashton’s concerned eyes. His shoulders slump and his eyes get weaker. “I’m trying, Ash, I really am. But I can’t handle this alone anymore.”

“You shouldn’t have to,” Ashton says, scooting closer to him. “You know we’re all here for you, right?”

Luke shakes his head and breathes in slowly. “Calum is always getting high nowadays, and Michael’s got his own problems, and you--” he stops himself, keeping steady eye contact with Ashton. “You’re you.”

Ashton frowns, tilting his head to the side. “What do you mean?”

Luke shakes his head, then looks down. “It’s not--it doesn’t matter.” He sighs and closes his eyes for a moment, before speaking again. “I shouldn’t have told you, I don’t want to bother you, I don’t--” he gets up. “I’m sorry, I--”

“Luke, wait--”

Luke’s hands cover his eyes. “I don’t want you to look at me differently.”

Ashton shakes his head and reaches up, touching Luke’s arm. “No, Luke, I won’t. Sit down with me, come on.”

Luke is hesitant, looking at him cautiously from over his fingers. He doesn’t sit right away, so Ashton keeps talking. “I didn’t treat Michael any different, did I? We all have our problems. You know what I used to be like.”

Luke nods, and he slowly sits back down. “That’s why I didn’t want to bother you with it,” he admits. “You already deal with so much, I don’t--know how you do it.”

Ashton shrugs. “I’m much better now,” he smiles weakly. “I hardly think about it anymore.”

Luke shakes and he scoots his own body closer to Ashton’s. “I’m afraid,” he says quietly. “I’m scared of myself.”

Ashton hesitantly puts an arm around Luke’s shoulder. “What about yourself?”

“I don’t control my head anymore,” Luke whispers. “My thoughts aren’t mine, they want me to do things that I don’t want to become.”

“Like what?”

Luke shakes and his throat catches, curling into Ashton’s side. “I don’t want to--to hurt myself or anything but I--I can’t stop thinking about it,” Luke’s hands reach up and his fingers tangle into his hair. “I can’t make it stop.”

Ashton’s chest aches and he pulls Luke close. He’s losing words, unsure how to console Luke, though he knows where Luke’s head might be. “Oh, Luke,” he says uselessly, rubbing circles into Luke’s back. He feels Luke’s ribs, and more bones, and he realizes how small Luke has become. 

The fingers in Luke’s hair grip, and they start to pull. “I’m falling apart,” he breathes, and Ashton can barely hear. “I’m losing myself.”

And, oh, Ashton knows, and he feels Luke’s words deep in his chest, twisting his heart and his stomach around. “Babe,” he gently touches Luke’s hands, rubbing them and coaxing his grip on his hair away. “Listen to me, okay?” Ashton’s breath shakes. “You’re going to get through this. I won’t let anything happen to you. And you can make it. I made it, and I’m nowhere near as strong as you are.”

Luke shakes his head. “I’m not strong.”

“Yes you are,” Ashton presses. “And it doesn’t matter, because I’m going to carry you through this. So will Cal and Michael if you let them,” his thumb runs down Luke’s hair and he rubs his forehead, trying to ease some of the wrinkles away. “You aren’t alone, Luke. I won’t let you be alone in this.”

Luke lifts his head up to look into Ashton’s kind eyes. “Why?” he croaked, his voice tight, on the verge of tears. “Why does it matter so much to you?”

Ashton hesitates, his fingers massaging the back of Luke’s head. “You came to me,” he says. “You came to me when you needed me, and I won’t push you away. I couldn’t do that to you. If we’re not here for each other, what are we? I love you, alright,” Ashton leans down and kisses Luke’s forehead. “We all do,” he adds. 

Luke shakes his head. “They don’t like you do.” His voice is uncertain, like he’s just coming to the realization, his words wavering. 

“Huh?”

Luke touches Ashton’s chest gently. “They don’t love me the way you do. Do they?” This time he sounds more sure, his hand on Ashton like a hand to the bible. 

Ashton starts to panic, glancing around the room, not looking at Luke directly. He laughs awkwardly. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Ashton.” Luke reaches up and touches Ashton’s cheek, turning his head towards his own. He forces Ashton to stare at him. Ashton can’t speak, pulled in by Luke’s eyes, unaware of the way his body his falling, surrendering, to the way Luke said his name. 

They kiss before Ashton registers what’s happening, lips pressed together, an air of sadness still around them, but the kiss like a candle in the dark. It doesn’t last long, but to them it feels like days have past, weeks even, lost and tangled in their feelings, and when they come out they find it hard to believe only a few moments had passed. 

Luke blinks up at Ashton, his blue eyes innocent, and still swimming with fear and a deep sadness. Ashton hesitates before he speaks, and when he does, it feels like he’s never been more sure of anything in his life. 

“You’re safe with me.”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading.  
> i love odilia.  
> stay beautiful friends.


End file.
